Dad's Dead

Dad's Dead
Directed by Chris Shepherd
Produced by Maria Manton
Written by Chris Shepherd
Starring Ian Hart, Chris Freeney, Dave Kent
Distributed by Slinky Pictures onedotzero
Release date
  • December 29, 2003 (2003-12-29)
Country United States
Language English

Dad's Dead is a seven-minute award winning film written and directed by Chris Shepherd, commissioned by animate!. It was first transmitted on Channel 4, in 2003. Mixing animation with live action, it deals with how memory works.

On August 27, 2007, Dad's Dead was released as an extra on the DVD release of Danny Boyle's science fiction film Sunshine. A new remastered HD version of the film was released for the first time in January 2015 to coincide with the completion of the 2016 sequel Johnno's Dead.

Synopsis

Ian Hart plays the narrator, an urban storyteller who relives his youth in 1970s and 80s Liverpool.

The narrator opens by asking the viewer if they ever think about the people they went to school with. He goes on to talk about his "best mate", Johnno, a popular and rebellious boy at school. However, Johnno turns out to be a thoroughly obnoxious and violent person, frequently swindling, stealing, vandalizing property and generally committing antisocial acts. He apparently enjoys cruelty to animals, throwing hamsters and cats off high-rise flats and bricking ducks. Johnno once confused the narrator by falsely telling him his father had died (hence the film's title).

The film then shows Johnno (whose face distorts into an ugly caricature every time he commits an unpleasant act) first beating up the narrator, then inviting him to the house of a "mate" — a blind man who thinks Johnno is his best friend, while Johnno in fact vandalizes his house, leaves maggot-infested food in his kitchen and even spits on him, all without the man being aware of it. The climax of the film has Johnno leaving the narrator unconscious as he burns the blind man's apartment — a crime for which the narrator is wrongly imprisoned. At the end, the narrator's elderly mother is shown answering the door to her Meals on Wheels carer - who turns out to be Johnno, laughing nastily as he enters the old woman's home.

Awards

2003

2004

An animate! commission funded by Arts Council England and Channel 4.

DVD releases

Sources

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